Now, here's a little bit of info you don't find around every day. But you never know when you might need this data. This is the table used by British hangmen to determine the "long drop"; a strong, thick rope is assumed.

Bring back a few British broadsides next time, MMario. If you can find any--they were in high demand, but I understand pedlars could be found to be distributing them. Roll them, don't fold them. Thanks!

A small fund, with the mandate to buy first editions would be adaquate. They could spend the surplus ( over the years) to finance a few of the people who died young due to lack of money. Say, a good doctor for Keats.

Just have him invest the money for you, Bruce. Maybe buy a few acres on Manhattan, or even just outside then-London, and place them in perpetual trust for you. Maybe add a strongbox of mint-condition gold coins, manuscripts from the time, priceless stuff like that. When you come to collect, you'll be set for life.

If I send you my sonnets, and you took them back to 1585, you could spread them around BEFORE Shakespeare even wrote his! They actually paid money for poetry back then- I see a chance to turn a hobby into income!

y'know, time travel was a lot easaier 16 years ago. Even 10 years ago.

these days I find the round trip a bit exhausting. But I made it to 1585 and back. I'm not sure all my brain cells did, so If gluon shows up with one or two, see if you can get her to bring them to me, allright?

Thanks for that citation. I forwarded it to the library staff. (That is a lot of stereotyped stuff for any normal library staff to wade through, but I'm sure they'll understand that the New York Times is a bit behind the times.)

The NY Times reports that Rapaire's dreams and fantasies are being realized, if too late for him...a whole generation of hip, bright, technosavvy meterosexual librarians is in bloom. Don't you hate it when your best and brightest concepts finally come to fruition, and you've grown too old to enjoy it? Sigh. I do.

Thanks to nano technology and supermicroscopy, even the most diligent filer can be caught with bad numbers and hounded by the Feds. Of course, some of the Feds insist on harassing even the most diligent non-filers and catching their bad numbers, too, so ya can't win. Wodda racket!! No wonder Cheney is racking up bigger crime hits than the Mafia these days.

Geez, I thought you guys woulda heard about filing off the serial numbers. So I had these numbers, see? And I was sanding off the serial numbers so they couldn't be identified by the Mathematikstaatspolizei.

Wow! If I'd been paying attention, I'd have waited seven minutes and called coup fourré! Thanks for pointing that out. Hmmm. Guess I'd better go see what the numbers were on my 7/7/07 lotto ticket. . .

Hey, MOM, didja notice how good the lawn looks? I mowed the front yesterday and the back today and even did the trimming. I also gave the dogs each a bath. Time to shape up around here, no more of this everything looking and smelling like the edge of a swamp.

The big un' is about 70 miles west. Nothing burning in the immediate area at the moment -- some young adults(?) decided to have a campfire the other night and it burned up a shed and 25 acres of the folks' farm. It's out, and I assume that mom and dad are not pleased....

It used to drive me nuts to hear about all of the wildfires that I wasn't out fighting. For years. I seem to have gotten over most of that finally. I put myself through my undergraduate years working for the Forest Service and raking in the overtime and hazardous duty pay and per diem and holiday double time, etc.

My pickup experienced an interesting number this evening. 86666. Not quite a pinwheel, but certainly round!